t their craft is for the service only of churches or great men
like kings and nobles." In the 13th and 14th centuries Saracen weavers
of rich and ornamental stuffs were also employed at Venice, which was a
chief centre for importing Oriental goods, including carpets, and
distributing them through western Europe. Dr Bode, in his
_Vorderasiatische Knupfteppiche_, instances Oriental carpets with
patterns mainly of geometric and angular forms represented in frescoes
and other paintings by Domenico di Bartolo (1440), Niccolo di
Buonaccorso (1450), Lippo Memmi (1480) and others.

Of greater interest perhaps, and especially as throwing light upon the
trade, in, if not the making of, carpets in England somewhat in the
method of contemporary Turkey carpets, is the specimen represented in
Plate III. fig. 6. This may have been made in England, where foreign
workmen, especially Flemings, were from early times often encouraged to
settle in order to develop industries, amongst which pile carpet-making
probably and tapestry-weaving certainly were included. The earliest
record of tapestry-weaving works in England is that of William Sheldon's
at Barcheston, Warwickshire, in 1509, and, besides wall hangings,
carpets of tapestry-weaving were also possibly made there.[2] The cut
pile carpet belonging to Lord Verulam (Plate III. fig. 6) was perhaps
made at Norwich. It has a repeating and simply contrived continuous
pattern of carnations and intertwining stems with a large lozenge in the
centre bearing the royal arms of England with the letters E.R.
(Elizabeth Regina) and the date 1570. It also has the arms of the
borough of Ipswich and those of the family of Harbottle. The sequence or
continuity of its border pattern fails in the corners at one end of the
rug or carpet in a way very common to many Asia Minor and Spanish
carpets (see Plate I. fig. 3, Plate II. fig. 4, and Plate IV. fig. 10);
not, however, to the majority of Persian carpets (see Plate III. fig. 7,
and Plate IV. fig. 8). A large cut pile carpet in the Victoria and
Albert Museum has a repeating pattern of star devices, rather Moorish in
style, with the inscription on one end of the border, "Feare God and
Keep His Commandments, made in the yeare 1603," and in the field the
shield of arms of Sir Edward Apsley of Thakeham, Sussex, impaling those
of his wife, Elizabeth Elmes of Lifford, Northamptonshire. This may have
been made in England. A carpet of very similar design, especially